‘You don’t mess with the wrong girl’

SWAN SONG Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez sings the national anthem for the last time as Speaker on July 23. —EARVIN PERIAS

DAVAO CITY—You don’t mess with the wrong girl.

This was Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte’s stern message to Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez after their quarrel in February.

The same message continued to echo after Alvarez was ousted as Speaker in a plot that involved key figures that included President Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter.

Sara was irked when Alvarez called her “part of the opposition” when she set up her party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP).

Alvarez was also quoted as saying HNP was formed without the President’s permission.

After the coup that installed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as new Speaker, Mayor Duterte kept silent on her supposed role in the coup.

But several legislators were already believed to be jumping ship from Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan to Mayor Duterte’s HNP in recognition of the mayor’s rising influence.

Growing interest

In a statement on Friday, Mayor Duterte said she had not foreseen a growth in interest in HNP by politicians outside the Davao region.

“We just wanted to create a strong region,” said the mayor’s statement.

“We did not foresee this growing interest from politicians from other regions,” it said.

HNP, however, had been accredited already by the Commission on Elections. It now counts thousands of village, municipal and provincial officials as members. —Frinston Lim